Pt2 - Iyanden

Intralogue II: Iyanden

Thus concludes the first folio of records relating to the Permorélian Cycle and its key player, Ranger - still, at this juncture - Saerith Veth of Ulthwe.

Between movements, it behooves us to take stock of the rejected materials, of which there are, admittedly, untold troves. It is a truth universal and a nightmare universally shared amongst archivists such as myself; the process of review whereby we discard the chaff, as it were. While primary sourcing can be quite forgiving of bias and conjecture, lines must certainly be drawn for fear of polluting the cohort of sources with…mere proximity to the material in question.

Amongst the unfortunate discards - largely on the basis of being recounted by third parties rather than sourced from direct transmission - were Vae’ethryn Lec’s heated exchange, prior to the sortie between the Death Watch and Black Council - with Eldrad Ulthran himself. Similarly, of the half-spire massacre: the now-legendary slaughter of kaballites in the heart of Commorragh as they attempted to thwart the Harlequin exfiltration of Saerith Veth. Or of the first Tau to be welcomed onto Alaitoc: Shas’o Vior’la Kest as honoured emissary of the protectors of the Oeriss tribe. The Loom also has access to a number of data crystals - copies, of course - carrying direct memories from Saerith herself. I have chosen to use these sparingly, where at all, as they depict individual memory presented as fact: compelling, but ultimately unverifiable. While true to a certain extent of any source…written and spoken sources announce their potential for bias in a more oblique and useful manner.

I digress: the voices that matter are those who give shape to the shadow half of the prophecy. On the historical record, Veth herself had little to say until much later, so we must rely on those close enough to personally observe the shape of that journey; its forks and caveats. Though as an inveterate completionist, to say that the rigour does not pain me in practice would be a deception.

I fear, however, that the pace, if not the rigour, of my work must slow somewhat. If only to test a theory, as concerning as that theory may be. You see, towards the end of collating the first Folio, the Ink Curses returned, striking down a very promising source on agricultural reforms overseen by Lothlaen Yae within the Craftworld of Ulthwe. Truly fascinating. Now a mouthless bulge of viscera, stuck in an eternal attempt to scream at me, defenestrated with appropriate haste. Seventeen more wardings added, but as Magister Phaen gently rebuked me: magical maintenance does interbleed with self-maintenance. It may be that the stress and urgency of my desire to move faster than the Ink Curses - and to finish, ending the necessity of this hellish cohabitation with the abusive clipboard heckling me from within the stacks - has compromised my wardings somewhat. So I must maintain my calm, even in the face of persistent and unwarranted critique, and persevere. After all, I was collating sources decades before that data-slate gained sentience; by what right does it refer to my methodology as ‘myopic’; my output as ‘uninspired’?

No matter.

Behold, dear reader, the second arc of the Asuryani Permorélian Cycle…more commonly known as the Prophecy of the Half-Dark Star.

• Acolyte Kaelan Korth of the Obsidian Spires

1.11. Void Shadows

Archivist’s Note: transcript procured from the Cult of Knowledge collection on contemporaneous cultural artifacts relating to Craftworld Iyanden. This ceremonial inscription (liquid wraithbone tablet; psycho-archival). Placed into symbiosis with the Iyanden Infinity Circuit roughly one month after what has been established in Imperial circles as the ‘Retaking of Kreen’.

Here begins the thirty-first record of the Void Shadows following from the Time of Leaving.

While the Infinity Circuit remembers all, so too does the Shadow-Record, of which I happen to be the humble keeper. It is a rare thing in these dark times whereby, not through agency but from an intersecting skein, we find ourselves beholden to the kindness of outsiders. This cycle, it pleases me to commit, through the ancient art of shapes on wraithbone, the annotation of a Soul we thought lost to us: That of Kloetten Oevrae, Outcast of Iyanden. Beloved son. Wanderer. Now home once more. Thanks be to Saerith Veth, Outcast of Ulthwe; shadow of the Half-Dark Star.

The final cycles of Kloetten Oevrae’s former skein have been revealed to us, now. He travelled much, aiding our Alaitoc and Anhrathe kin, and finding the end of his Skein aboard a craft of the Path Misguided. The attempt was made to recover Il-Kaithe Spirit Stones from the cold, dead metal of the mon-keigh craft; to ferry kin from where-lost to where-found. In death, Kloetten proved himself one of us. A Void Shadow. It is so noted. He is so honoured. And now, a new skein unravels toward horizons unknown. As is natural and correct, his spirit stone has been relinquished to the Spiritseers and Bonesingers.

Our duty, somber and recursive, must be as it is. For in the intrusive gloom of the present aeon…there is nought but war.

But what of our benefactor? When asked the question that those such as her must be asked - whether she would join us in shouldering the burden of the Void Shadows - she answered ‘for a time’. We are grateful. It is so noted.

The Ranger will journey to Gaen-Aenithrael; a place dear to our hearts, yet far from our purview. Here, in the shadow of The Great Wound, it is known that mon-keigh administrators covet our people’s souls…have fashioned them into brooches and clasps and use them to delineate hierarchy. Naïveté of this sort can be understood. Yet understanding does not presuppose acceptance. A lesson must be taught. Our people must return home. Saerith will do this for us.

So ends the thirty-first record of the Void Shadows following from the Time of Leaving.

2.11. Inquisitor Vyzen Braiak

Archivist’s Note: Direct ship-to-planet uplink (Audio-visual) between Inquisitor Argent Laibach and Lord Inquisitor Vyzen Braiak occurred roughly one month following on from the ‘Retaking of Kreen’.

Argent Laibach: Lord Inquisitor.

Vyzen Braiak: Why so formal, Laibach? It’s just us.

Argent Laibach: Sorry…Lord Inquisitor.

Vyzen Braiak: Duly pardoned, my friend. Now, to business? You had need of my thoughts?

Argent Laibach: Yes. I…think a mistake is being made.

Vyzen Braiak: The only mistake being made is the rate at which I’m getting through that damn crate you sent. Heretical, the quality of that Amasec. May have to pay Thracian a personal visit and impound some for further investigation.

Argent Laibach: Hilarious, Lord Inquisitor.

Vyzen Braiak: Oh, speaking of which, Ayleric Chorda - the Rogue Trader’s nephew you met with - sends his regards, incidentally. Sounds like you made quite the impression. If, perchance, you felt like marrying into the dynasty…well, the inquisition could use a little proximity -

Argent Laibach: - Profoundly uninterested, Lord Inquisitor.

Vyzen Braiak: Very well. Just looking out for your best interests, Laibach. A lady could do worse than a Chorda scion. Both professionally and financially.

Argent Laibach: While I’m sure that’s true, I’d rather…Look, Braiak, I’m actually serious. There is a mistake being made regarding Kreen.

Vyzen Braiak: Fine, have it your way. Inquisitor Laibach, apprise me of the situation.

Argent Laibach: First, what we know. I have sent my research on the Aeldari vessels over Kreen. They’re clearly Ulthwe. The track record speaks for itself, but let us take into account the numerous non-lethal raids, sustained presence, the evidence of Drukhari cooperation in destabilising Kreen -

Vyzen Braiak: - Sounds like solid reasoning to justify a permanent Militarum presence with Deathwatch monitoring -

Argent Laibach: - Exactly! I mean…yes, Lord Inquisitor, exactly.

Vyzen Braiak: Ahh. So we’re still on the Farseer mind-games theorem, are we?

Argent Laibach: Shattered crust of Cadia, yes!

Vyzen Braiak: Here’s our problem, Laibach, yours and mine: I don’t disagree with you. I see what this looks like. But unless you can bring me a ‘why’ that makes the established counterpoint suboptimal, I see no scenario in which this is not the most suitable response. Merely that the Aeldari want us there does not occasion our absence.

Argent Laibach: Perhaps it should. Temporarily at least.

Vyzen Braiak: What, delay deployment out of spite to see what they do? I can already tell you what they’ll do, Laibach, and I’m a little flummoxed that I’ve trained a Xenos hunter who doesn’t seem to know.

Argent Laibach: Exterminatus.

Vyzen Braiak: I beg your finest fucking pardon, Inquisitor Laibach?

Argent Laibach: Hear me out, Lord Inquisitor: we begin moving assets into place to make it look as if we mean to crack the planet. We have the Deathwatch play heavy defence -

Vyzen Braiak: - and wait for the Xenos to tip their hand. Monitor heavily for planet-side behaviour or changes…worst case scenario, we end up tearing apart an Ulthwe fleet. Which, incidentally, I’ve always wanted to do.

Argent Laibach: The plan is yours if you want it, Lord Inquisitor.

Vyzen Braiak: So you’re insane.

Argent Laibach: It’s been implied.

Vyzen Braiak: You’re also a little bit brilliant, Laibach. It’s an audacious play. You own it. I’ll support it.

Argent Laibach: The Emperor Protects, Lord Inquisitor.

Vyzen Braiak: Those of us who prove worthy. Make your plans, Inquisitor.

1.12. Raiders and Anhrathe

Archivist’s note: Transcript procured from the Cult of Knowledge collection on contemporaneous cultural artifacts relating to Asuryani Corsair tribes. Inter-ship (Audio-visual) parlay recorded roughly one month following on from the ‘Retaking of Kreen’.

Effenrae: I have transmitted several coordinates for your perusal.

Etriz the Splinterer: What is this, Anhrathe? Have you nothing better to do?

Effenrae: About a million things better than dealing with the likes of you, cousin. But here we are. There’s grime on my hull and I mean to wipe it clean.

Etriz the Splinterer: Ship maintenance is -

Effenrae: - Don’t play the Distaur, you Com’ragh street-waste. You know our grievance.

Etriz the Splinterer: Why, noble cousin, I wouldn’t presume to -

Effenrae: - Ulthwe and Iyanden’s policy is clear, and the Anhrathe are in alignment. Desecrators of Souls forfeit their own. You’re one of Quoraine’s lickspittles. The lesson will be taught. Scuttle back to Commorragh and let your master know that the reprisals against your Kabal end when he does. Better yet, handle it for us.”

“I know not what you refer to! This one is but a humble trader - “

“ - Slaver, you mean?”

“Kin, are these not synonyms? Commerce is commerce.”

“I wouldn’t test me, were I you: I know it was you Kabal of the Venom Glaive degenerates who held Saerith Veth captive. I have a dual investment in seeing you void-torn.”

Etriz the Splinterer: Oh Saerith! I was so very disappointed she left Commorragh before we had a chance to give her the…authentic welcome experience.

Effenrae: Don’t test me.

Etriz the Splinterer: Is she well? I’m told she’s taken up recovering spirit stones for Iyanden like a pointy-eared mon-keigh Arbites. Dangerous waters, though. So very many things could happen, running back and forth between stars like that…be a true shame if -

Effenrae: - Faell?

Faell Noethiira: Captain?

Effenrae: Fire on the escort if you’d be so kind?

Etriz the Splinterer: Wait, what?

Faell Noethiira: Done, Captain. Escort destroyed.

Etriz the Splinterer: Well, that’s fine. Those Half-born trash were more a hindrance than an asset anyway.

Effenrae: Oh, truly? Faell, charge the Lance for our cousin? Let’s do the Splinterer’s Raider this time -

Etriz the Splinterer: - Stop! Dear cousin, that won’t be necessary. I’ll convey your regards to the Archon, shall I?

Effenrae: Please do. If Quoraine would like to discuss the issue in person, he knows where I am.

Archivist’s note: Transcript procured from The Order of The Loom at the request of Magister Phaen. This ‘letter’ (Runic inscription; wraithbone shard) was delivered to Craftworld Iyanden from Craftworld Ulthwe. ‘Written’ document (psychically embedded runic inscriptions on wraithbone shard) dispatched roughly one month following on from the ‘Retaking of Kreen’.

Our skeins entwine once again, kin to our kinless kin. I spend these cycles lost in memories of our times before, and in hopes of those yet to come. It is distracting. Perhaps you were correct that the Path is a thing too rigid to reconcile with a longing for agency. Or perhaps you have merely ruined me. Perhaps those parts of you that you left within me whisper of wandering. I wonder what the parts of me that I left in you whisper?

I have petitioned the Shrine, and the Shrine releases me to you. Iyanden, then. You have your Spider, Webless. And from there, we shall see.

Your sister is loathe to leave her Design to the Council, but I know her heart, now. She will weave away from her skein - briefly - for us.

2.12. Kreen

Archivist’s Note: Communiques from Inquisitor Argent Laibach to Lord Inquisitor Vyzen Braiak (whom she reports to directly within the Ordo Xenos) procured from The Order of The Loom at the request of Magister Phaen. Communique (Audio only) dispatched roughly one month and two weeks following on from the ‘Retaking of Kreen’.

Status Update re. The ‘Exterminatus’.

We may have over-corrected for plausibility, Lord Inquisitor. The Fleet is in place. Cyclonic torpedoes are live, and matrices are active. But the fleet is an impregnable kill-box, and even Orks wouldn’t be stupid enough to fly headlong into it. And Ulthwe are not Orks.

Solution: Emperor forgive me…we need a flaw. Something they could conceivably hit that their Seers won’t read as what it is. Bait.

I’ve given it a lot of thought. Here’s my design:

First: It has to be a weakness that reads as strength to the Deathwatch. We need the Aeldari to see hubris, not double-bluff.

Second: It has to be immediately correctable. We need to, in a fraction of a moment, be able to mitigate the weakness.

Third: we need a narrow response vector. We need to know where they’ll hit so we can ensure the margin for error is razor thin.

You’ll notice I’m hedging. Why hedge? Well, it’s like you taught me, Lord Inquisitor: If your plan sounds insane, build the logic in-pre-not-post.

Here it is: we need to look greedier. We need to start taking the Rejuvenat source off-world. It puts them on count-down; implies that we will not pull the trigger until adequate extraction has occurred. Which provides them with a perceived lever against us. They’ll either hit the convoys or the orbital refineries, which have agri-zones for pre-processing. We need to know we can knock them out of the sky and keep going. Whatever it is they want on Kreen, we need to force them to either protect it, or extract it themselves.

I’ll keep working the details, but this is the play, Lord Inquisitor.

The Emperor Protects.

1.13. Gaen-Aenithrael

Archivist’s Note: Transcript procured from The Order of The Loom at the request of Magister Phaen. From what I have been able to discern, this interview (audio-visual) was recorded via Servo-Skull roughly one month and three weeks after the ‘Retaking of Kreen’. Ancillary, related context clarifies some rather opaque elements of this accounting: Inquisitor Golan Raal - a contemporary of Argent Laibach in the Ordo Xenos had actually been an invitee to the Kordir banquet but had been delayed en route, which assists in clarifying the Inquisition’s interest in, and subsequent response to, the matter.

Golan Raal: We’ll need to run through it again, Oktahvya.

Oktahvya Syna: I can’t, I can’t, I can’t -

Golan Raal: - Hey…shh. It’s okay. I promise it’ll be the last time. The Inquisition is grateful for your assistance in this matter, I assure you.

Oktahvya Syna: The Inquisition is ‘grateful’?

Golan Raal: Is that so far fetched a notion, Oktahvya?

Oktahvya Syna: You brought that…thing in here -

Golan Raal: - Saral? Saral is lovely.

Oktahvya Syna: I bled…from the ears. That thing…is empty inside!

Golan Raal: Well yes, technically, but he really is a gentle fellow, deep down. You’re a psyker, Oktahvya. Let’s remember who we are before being…prejudicial.

Oktahvya Syna: I can’t, I can’t -

Golan Raal: - Be brave. Just once more. Then you get to go back to the Astra Telepathica for a new assignment, and we can put all of this behind us, yes? You were a good placement for House Kordir. Exemplary, even. Let’s…conclude your service record on a positive note, shall we?

Oktahvya Syna: I can’t see that…thing again -

Golan Raal: - And there’s no need for you to, so long as we can wrap this up without him. Okay?

Oktahvya Syna: Okay.

Golan Raal: Good. Now. Oktahvya Syna. Theta level, sanctioned, assigned by the Astra Telepathica to House Kordir, served for…three years -

Oktahvya Syna: - Three years, seven months -

Golan Raal: - Thank you, Oktahvya. Noted. Three years, seven months as resident House Telepath at the Governor’s estate. Good so far?

Oktahvya Syna: The Grin.

Golan Raal: Pardon?

Oktahvya Syna: ‘The Grin of Gaen-Aenithrael’. It was Orrdan’s…Lord Kordir’s…little joke. My title.

Golan Raal: We do not need to dwell on petty mockeries -

Oktahvya Syna: - Not mockery, Inquisitor. Affection. I…enjoyed my…posting. I smiled a lot. They liked to see me smile.

Golan Raal: Unorthodox though, you’d acknowledge? And referring to the colony by that name?

Oktahvya Syna: I should not have -

Golan Raal: - No, appreciate the candour. Good to know. Now. The night of the incident. Run me through it.

Oktahvya Syna: As I told you, Inquisitor Raal…there had been a banquet. As was common for the household, Guests retired to their overnight quarters -

Golan Raal: - They stayed overnight? All of them?

Oktahvya Syna: We’ve…discussed this.

Golan Raal: Apologies, Oktahvya. This works best if we treat this as a new and definitive accounting. Humour a humble pedant?

Oktahvya Syna: Of course. Sorry, Inquisitor. Yes, many of the Guests were from far away or off-world. It was quite the occasion. Lord Kordir has a standing policy that guests are welcome to the household’s hospitality - overnight or longer - following an event. We’d had many such nights. It was seen by most as quite an honour.

Golan Raal: Where were you?

Oktahvya Syna: In my quarters.

Golan Raal: Under guard?

Oktahvya Syna: We didn’t…yes, Inquisitor, naturally.

Golan Raal: What were you going to say?

Oktahvya Syna: Simply that…we didn’t think of it in that way. The security detail was required, but it was for everyone’s safety, including my own. They were…friends.

Golan Raal: Very unorthodox.

Oktahvya Syna: Yes Inquisitor. I’m sorry.

Golan Raal: Why? Did you do something wrong, Oktahvya?

Oktahvya Syna: N-no?

Golan Raal: Then don’t apologise. Let’s continue. When did you first become aware of the incursion?

Oktahvya Syna: I could feel Torrey and Arlen’s minds…wobble. They moved away. I felt…I felt the wobble -

Golan Raal: - Please define ‘wobble’?

Oktahvya Syna: Dissonance. Usually some kind of fear, or stress? Nothing specific enough to grasp, but enough to feel from a distance.

Golan Raal: Thank you. Proceed.

Oktahvya Syna: I felt it clear, as if it had never been there. Their minds were back to normal. But then…then they were…gone.

Golan Raal: Gone?

Oktahvya Syna: Like snuffed candles. Gone.

Golan Raal: Dead?

Oktahvya Syna: …yes.

Golan Raal: What then?

Oktahvya Syna: I went out.

Golan Raal: And what did you find?

Oktahvya Syna: Confirmation. I-in this situation, my training was to protect the household, to reach out with my mind, find the intruder, and…stop them.

Golan Raal: Did you?

Oktahvya Syna: I could not.

Golan Raal: Why?

Oktahvya Syna: Because they stopped me.

Golan Raal: How?

Oktahvya Syna: I saw them in the room. Three women. One wore…some kind of armour, red and black. She had a helmet under her arm. Her eyes were warm, like early morning during the harvest.

Golan Raal: Height? Defining characteristics?

Oktahvya Syna: S-she…looked cut from stone. Impassive, symmetrical, distant. Tall - taller than you or I, all three of them - and the armoured one had blond hair tinged with dawn. Our minds grazed, and I knew. Aliens. Agents of death. I panicked, Inquisitor. I tried to unleash it all at once, tried to tear into their minds, but…one of the others, the one in the black flowing robes, carvings of gold and bone on her chest…she was lit up from the other side like a star exploding in front of me, and I could feel her…simply…stop it.

Golan Raal: And -

Oktahvya Syna: - blonde. Paler than the first, skin like moonlight on pale silk. Ash-grey eyes, pupils pooling voids…I still see them in my mind’s eye.

Golan Raal: Thank you. Proceed.

Oktahvya Syna: She just…she waved it away with a sad little smile, without moving a muscle. The third one - the one with the long, dark, hooded cloak, face full of shadow beneath the hood…brown-black hair and those same cold, grey eyes - well…she carried a jewelled rifle. She raised it. Pointed it at me. The one with the flowing robes shook her head, laying a single finger on the muzzle of the rifle and lowering it. Not a word was spoken. The armoured one and the one with the rifle vanished. They moved like…nothing I have ever seen. Like they were never there.

Golan Raal: And the robed one? The one who was ‘lit up’?

Oktahvya Syna: She took me back to my quarters. Gently, by the arm.

Golan Raal: You let her?

Oktahvya Syna: There was no ‘let’, Inquisitor. My mind and my body were not connected. She moved me like a puppet. Laid me down. Stroked my hair. Told me things.

Golan Raal: Told you what things?

Oktahvya Syna: Her name…

Golan Raal: Which was…?

Oktahvya Syna: Vae’ethryn Lec.

Golan Raal: And…?

Oktahvya Syna: That it was…necessary. ‘Natural and correct’. She told me that my household -

Golan Raal: - Your household?

Oktahvya Syna: I’m so sorry, Inquisitor: The House of Kordir. She told me they had stolen and abused the souls of their kin. S-she told me that I was innocent. But I knew the truth. She knew I knew the truth. I could feel her slipping the message into my mind beneath her words. They let me live as witness.

Golan Raal: Generous of them.

Oktahvya Syna: Not generosity. A warning. She said ‘the lesson must be taught’.

Golan Raal: Did she tell you specifically how the souls of their kin had been abused?

Oktahvya Syna: No, Inquisitor.

Golan Raal: When did you become aware of…the scale of it?

Oktahvya Syna: As it happened, Inquisitor. I felt…I felt each of them blink out like…like Torrey and Arlen had. Like snuffed candles. Until there were none remaining.

Golan Raal: Two hundred and seven.

Oktahvya Syna: I know.

Golan Raal: Thank you for your compliance, Oktahvya. I think we’re done here. Arbites, back to holding for the time being if you please. Servo-five, end recording.

2.13. Conclave

Archivist’s Note: Transcripts procured from The Order of The Loom at the request of Magister Phaen. Communiques (Audio only) to-and-from Inquisitor Argent Laibach, Lord Inquisitor Vyzen Braiak and Inquisitor Golan Raal sent between one month and three weeks and one month and four weeks from the ‘Retaking of Kreen’. Our first Communique was sent from Golan Raal to Vyzen Braiak.

Lord Inquisitor. I pray all is well with you and yours. Perchance you’ve heard tell of a Xenos Incursion on Torian? House Kordir (a significant local dynasty) all but wiped out. 207 local administrators and attending family members in total. Their House Psyker was spared, and managed to gather a name from one of the Xenos. Upon investigation, intelligence suggests this ‘Vae’ethryn Lec’ is an Ulthwe Farseer. I’ve reason to believe - an Aeldari craft, damaged and captured, found in proximity - that they are still on Torian. Three Xenos total, description of the other two match Warp Spider and Ranger designations to the letter. I recall some recent noise about Ulthwe and the Drukhari scrapping over Spirit Stones? Possibly related? These were referred to as a possible motive for the Xenos presence. Anything additional would be appreciated.

In His Holy Name.

Archivist’s Note: Communique From Vyzen Braiak to Argent Laibach.

Argent, it looks like your knife-eared friend Lothlaen Yae’s boss has shown up on Inquisitor Golan Raal’s dataslate. Did we end up locating additional intelligence on her?

The Emperor Protects.

Archivist’s Note: Communique From Argent Laibach to Vyzen Braiak.

Raal? The Radical who drags the Blank around with him like a Vox-Klaxon announcing his psychic presence? I’m sure that’ll be helpful in tracking a Farseer.

But no, nothing additional at this time, Lord Inquisitor. Ulthwe has a great many Seers. I haven’t concerned myself overly with this specific one in relation to Kreen. Should I?

While we’re on the topic of Ulthwe, however, we’re seeing a suspiciously high rate of 'mechanical failures' with the transports we’ve been herding the Rejuvenat fauna into. Implementing additional monitoring at present. You can tell me how brilliant I am at some future point; whenever best suits your schedule.

The Emperor Protects.

Archivist’s Note: Communique from Vyzen Braiak to Golan Raal.

Ulthwe Farseer, as you say; minimal intel.

Why are we speculating that Torian might be a focal point for a Spirit Stone related misadventure? Do we have a larger problem on Torian that needs addressing?

The Emperor Protects.

Archivist’s Note: Communique from Golan Raal to Vyzen Braiak.

No, Lord Inquisitor. Upon investigation, it would appear Orrdan Kordir, former House Patriarch, had a couple of stones in his possession. Inert Exodite stones from the pre-colonial period; heretical with a lower case ‘h’. Wore them ceremonially. May have warranted intervention, but…well, the Xenos beat us to it. And they also appear to have absconded with them. But, as you say, speculation purely as to whether they were a motivating factor. I will be back to you with further as rapidly as possible.

In His Holy Name.

Archivist’s Note: Communique from Vyzen Braiak to Golan Raal.

Over ‘a couple’ of stones, Raal? Tends to take more than ‘a couple’ of stones to provoke a massacred dynasty. From memory, this isn’t your first brush with that particular species of Xenotech, so I’ll be fascinated to read your full report on this scenario once further context comes to light. I’m certain you’ll provide valuable insight into the causal particulars.

The Emperor Protects

Archivist’s Note: Communique from Golan Raal to Vyzen Braiak.

I will endeavour to satisfy your curiosity, Lord Inquisitor.

As always, your guidance is appreciated.

In His Holy Name.

1.14. Teovirn’s Cascade

Archivist’s Note: Transcripts procured from The Order of The Loom at the request of Magister Phaen. Exchange (Audio only) stored in Effenrae’s Ships Log, and took place roughly two months after the ‘Retaking of Kreen’.

Lothlaen Yae: Effenrae. Uyraenta Macyl’n -

Effenrae: - ‘Captain’ is quicker -

Lothlaen Yae: - of the Anhrathe. Kinless. I welcome you to Ulthwe.

Effenrae: Yes, yes: I’m so welcomed. Where are the twins?

Lothlaen Yae: Corsair, I answer not to -

Effenrae: - Hear me, you obsequious little shit -

Lothlaen Yae: - You can leave -

Effenrae: - You can try and fucking make me, Warlock.

Lothlaen Yae: I gave you berth. I let you in. If you want to step one foot off that depressing excuse for a ship, you will observe the appropriate -

Effenrae: - I don’t do decorum, child. Where are my girls?

Lothlaen Yae: Not your girls. But…not here. They have travelled to Gaen-Aenithrael.

Effenrae: Iyanden’s errands.

Lothlaen Yae: Why else?

Effenrae: Morai-Heg’s weighted fucking dice…Warlock, something begins to unspool. My Void-Dreamer hears it on the wind. Poisonous whispers swirling and eddying up from -

Lothlaen Yae: - Commorragh. Yes, the Council pulls it from the Skein. They know. Vae’ethryn knows. She has delegated a Design.

Effenrae: Of course she has. Of course she didn’t deign to send word.

Lothlaen Yae: What need was there? You’re here now, are you not?

Effenrae: I did not miss this predestinative gibberish.

Lothlaen Yae: Come, Kinless. The Council deliberate with the Void Shadow’s emissary.

Effenrae: On some quiet cycle, the lot of you will trip and fall on your own tangle of twisted skeins, you realise this, no?

Lothlaen Yae: Perhaps, but not this cycle.

Effenrae: To Teovirn’s Cascade, then?

Lothlaen Yae: ‘Aye’, Corsair.

Effenrae: Careful, little Seer.

2.14. Inquisitor Golan Raal

Archivist’s Note: Transcript (audio only personal log) procured from The Order of The Loom at the request of Magister Phaen. Log dated roughly four months and a week from the ’Retaking of Kreen’.

Personal log: eighty-first day since my arrival on Torian.

The noose tightens, and not a moment too late. Cutting outbound traffic from Torian was necessary, but it has also led to micro-management soaking up my precious time; inspecting every ‘excepted’ ship out personally has been an onerous task. But House Kordir’s network - provincial though it may be - has done excellent work. Excluding false leads and misdirections, we have a through line of the Aeldari’s movements: from the Kordir estate, through Ishvalle and Audiol, to the Administrative hub of Pax-Anithraal. Over weeks, we’ve narrowed the vector to a decisive point. Yesterday evening, we received our first visual confirmation. The Ranger. Find a rat, find the nest. Saral and I leapt on the intelligence forthwith.

With Saral close, and the Arbites flanking, we’ll prioritise the Farseer, then isolate and neutralise the others. I aim to take the Ranger alive for questioning. They were here for the Stones - that much is clear - and there may be more. If so, we will take their location from her.

The truth of the Xenos is simpler than many of my colleagues understand: Calm and protected, they scheme and plot, weaving threads and paths of inscrutable complexity. But pressure does not inherently make diamonds. Sometimes it just cracks hard rocks. All thinking beings have this in common: cornering desperate vermin equals a predictable, panicked scurry. This all ends tomorrow.

In His Holy Name.

1.15. Masque

Archivist’s Note: ‘Written’ communication (psychically embedded runic inscriptions on what appears to have been a fragment of an inquisitorial ceramite breastplate) dispatched via Anhrathe courier roughly four months and a week from the ’Retaking of Kreen’.

Keeper of the Shadow-Record of Iyanden: the lesson has been taught. I, Saerith Veth, offer this crystal to you, couriered in advance of my return to Iyanden. Between the Crystal’s contents and then, I have but one loose end to tie up from a skein-earlier-threaded. A fraying, trailing strand that begs to be cut. It will not take long.

Touch the crystal, Keeper. See what I saw. Know what I now know.

Archivist’s Note: The contents of the Crystal itself has been abridged to exclude significant pressing context around the strategic infrastructure put in place. I feel that I can aptly summarise this by saying, simply, that the preparations were extensive.

The rain fell in translucent sheets, mottled silver and grey by the light of the early morning. Saerith’s hood hung around her face, droplets pooling along its rim and falling past her eyeline. She barely noticed. Her focus was elsewhere. She lay, elbows under her, rifle astride, eye keenly monitoring through the visual clutter of raindrops falling.

“The chasm splits toward us.” She heard Vae’ethryn’s voice in her head.

“Just…so.” Saerith muttered out loud.

“Your mind to my mind, sister.” Saerith nudged herself a little higher up, lip-line tightening into a scowl. She reached out to Vae’ethryn with her mind.

“Do you wish to take the shot, Etta?”

“Am I distracting you, Ranger?” There was a playful lilt in the words that reached her, almost mocking.

“Yes, Farseer. I realise my vocation is less taxing than manipulating children into murdering one another, but focus is still required.”

“Yes yes. Do your work. We will be ready.”

”Mmm.” Saerith lowered herself back down into the stance. She reached up towards her face, adjusting the monocular targeting overlay. She watched as the small transport craft - sleek, black, and ostentatiously over-machined - cut through the cloud-layer above and descended into the shallow valley. It touched down silently on the soft, black dirt at the edge of the fields, by the small compound. Saerith watched through the targeting matrix, runic indicators scrolling and blinking, as the disembarkation began. Three Arbites first. Saerith started to calculate her breathing and the beats of her heart in time with the cadence of the falling rain. Next, the inquisitor - Raal - stepped out, fur lined Greatcoat slung over his shoulders. Saerith adjusted her sensor; more of a calibration check than anything, just to be certain. Last, The Absence alighted from the craft. Through the monitor, from that distance, Saerith barely felt a shiver of its wrongness grazing at the edges of her mind. She watched the empty thing’s footfalls as it padded around to stand just behind its master. Saerith carefully inhaled, then exhaled, counting forty three - no, forty-four - intersects. The matrix ran its own numbers, correcting for the rain; the wind; the low-light. It was no simple thing. Saerith pressed the trigger down. A moment later, The Absence dissipated. Its shell crumpled. It was done. “Haste, Etta. Before they scurry away.” Saerith reached out with her mind. She felt an affirmation - like a nod - but no words. Time to move.

Grabbing up her long-rifle, she jogged down the brief, steep incline and directly into the vast expanse of disrupted black topsoil spanning the valley between her sniper’s nest and the distant compound. Eyes to the ground as she ran, Saerith deftly jumped across the irrigation ditches, glancing down at the bright, chemical ooze seeping from the plasteel piping and into to soil, akin to - in Saerith’s mind - weeping open wounds.

It didn’t take long to reach the compound. By then, it was finished. Raal was on his knees before Vae’ethryn. The Arbites had been reduced to slurries of flesh and fabric from Aelianiss’s Death Spinner. The Absence lay depleted and headless off to the side. Aelianiss removed her helmet as Saerith approached. Her cheeks were slightly flushed and her hair out of place, stray strands falling in front of her brow and eyes. The left was raised in that familiar arch. Saerith found herself smiling.

“Your sister has many skills, but of them compliments are not one.” Aelianiss smiled back at Saerith. “Kurnous reborn, truly.”

“The forest contains trees. The sky contains clouds. The Ranger made her shot.” Vae’ethryn deadpanned. “Need we build a myth around it?”

“Farseers and Autarchs.” Saerith smirked. “If they can’t do it, it’s beneath them.”

“Kin, we’ve work to do.” Vae’ethryn nodded towards Raal. Saerith grabbed the back of his Greatcoat, pulling him to his feet with ease. Together, the three moved towards the compound with their captive, his hands bound behind his back.

“P-please, we can come to some sort of arrangement, surely?” Raal attempted as Saerith forced him through the door and into the interior. The space was utilitarian. Bare rockcrete floors, poor lighting, and clusters of small vats and silos that were clearly designed for testing, tracking and quality control rather than harvest.

“It speaks.” Aelianiss muttered.

“Yes. Let’s see what can’t be done about that.” Vae’ethryn replied. Saerith could feel the slight change in psychic pressure in the room, and the brief whirl of panic as Raal realised that his mouth no longer responded to his brain. She raised an eyebrow at Vae’ethryn, then watched as Aelianiss moved with purpose towards the small docking alcove against the far wall, retrieving one of several powered-down servo-skulls. Aelianiss glanced at Raal with a pre-emptive smirk: “Do not be too hopeful. We have already deactivated your primitive alarm protocols. This is the only device still active, and it is moved to share purpose with us.”

”Please…” Raal reiterated, choking out the word. Saerith glanced towards Vae’ethryn. Her malign smile confirmed Saerith’s assumption; that she was varying her hold.

“Don’t toy with it, Etta. It’s…unbecoming.”

“Fine.” Vae’ethryn conceded, before turning back to Raal: ”Steel yourself, Inquisitor. Your Emperor is watching.” She sneered as Aelianiss activated the servo-skull. The lights in its oculars shifted red-to-green and it hung in the air quietly, observing.

”One suspects he has larger problems than thieving Inquisitors.” Saerith amended under her breath before releasing her grip on Raal’s coat and letting him fall to the ground. “Golan Raal. You shame your already shameful vocation. Defiling our kin as trophies? Obfuscating the extraction and trade in stones by the nobles of this world? Deceiving your Masters for the purpose of greed and ego? We three stand here in judgement. There is no bargain to be struck. Today, your life ends.” Saerith glanced at the servo-skull before circling around to look down at Raal. In his eyes she saw…fear, yes, but swimming amidst desperation. She had seen it before, many times. There was a gulf in him between logic and acceptance, bridged by spurious and shifting algorithms of hope. “I see. You believe this Theater to be for your benefit. To twist you. To break you.”

“We stage this Masque for your Masters.” Vae’ethryn clarified. “You wore these…” She strode over to Raal, reaching down and tearing the silken sash from his chest, studded with five glowing Spirit Stones. “You wore them openly. You shrouded yourself with a hole in reality. You thought yourself safe, after murdering our kin and wearing them as trophies. There is no safety from us. Not for the likes of you. You thought yourself a hunter, Raal. Never not were you our quarry. Our mark. Our prey. Such will be the fate of any and all who do as you did.” Vae’ethryn held the sash pointedly in her clenched fist, looking up to gaze into to servo-skulls shadowed sockets, as if to address it directly: “The Inquisition may operate beyond mon-keigh law. It does not operate beyond Asuryani justice.” Aelianiss, as if on queue, made her way over to stand between Saerith and Vae’ethryn, staring down at Raal.

“Gaen-Aenithrael is an Aeldari world. Overtaken and infested, Torian was built over a slumbering World Spirit, and the resting places of those who toiled and passed in harmony with Her.” Aelianiss explained. “Your people have poisoned this world’s skies. Defiled its soil. Devastated its forests and oceans. And in this, you were not satisfied. House Kordir cut deep into this place; brought our kin’s ceremonial Stones from beneath the dirt, and defiled these, too. You joyfully sought to join them here, to compare trophies. But the travesty must end. We sunder this rotting skein to dust, we take our people home, and we present to you - ” Aelianiss paused briefly, looking up into the Servo-Skulls patiently observing sockets: “ - the ‘Inquisition’: this corrupt mon-keigh opportunist as example and lesson, in language even those such as you may understand: Touch our souls? Yours are forfeit.” Aelianiss looked to Vae’ethryn, who nodded. Staring impassively down into Raal’s pleading eyes, her peripheries grazing over his gaping, psychically silenced mouth…Saerith felt the energy of the room compress down to a point, fixed on Raal. She could feel his mind…his being, start to shred and decohere. In mere moments, it was done. His body fell bonelessly to the floor. Aelianiss reached for the hovering servo-skull, deftly deactivating it. “Vermin.” She shook her head.

”Merely echoes.” Saerith commented. “A fractured prism refracting different things from different angles. Children from one vantage. Animals from another. Our own sins from yet another. Our own wasted potential from yet another still. Do not hate them, Ae. This was necessary, but…they know not of the chasm beneath their feet. They think the hollow places astride the skein mere cracks to be stepped over.”

“They are noise.” Vae’ethryn dismissed. “Obscene randomness: your term, sister.”

“Yes, well. Thus ends the Masque of the idiot thief, Golan Raal. What of the Exodite stones, Ae?”

“So far as can be told, the Kordir family were thorough. The Stones we took during the cull were all that there were to take. The Exodites of Gaen-Aenithrael were of Iyanden, once. We should take them to the Craftworld. Returning them to the soil would merely re-seed the harvest of desecration.”

“They are empty, Ae. The Craftworld may use them.”

“If so, then so be it. It is not mine to stand in judgement of Iyanden’s handling of their legacy.”

“Twenty seven Exodite Stones. Two of Altansar. One of Iybraesil. One of Ulthwe. And Raal’s personal collection, five Iyanden Stones. Warrior Stones. Would that we could raze this world entirely, sunder them to dust, to the very last of them.” Vae’ethryn summarised grimly.

“Are we prepared for the consequences of this act?” Saerith asked, glancing at Vae’ethryn.

“A question asked a cycle late, sister.” Vae’ethryn frowned.

“You mistake me. I ask for you. I walk the Outcast Path already.”

“I tire of the shadows.” Vae’ethryn shrugged. “Our people ruled the Galaxy for untold aeons. Stars lived and died at our whims. Fate itself shuddered beneath the gravity of our wants. And now we cower and hedge and sell ourselves off a piece at a time, and for what?” Vae’ethryn and Aelianiss shared a look. “We are paradox. The Asuryani were not those for whom the lesson of She Who Thirsts’ birth was instructive. We labour beneath a yoke crafted by fools whom we were never not the betters of. We left. They did not. And now we are damned by them forever? No. I will burn the warp-soul from within me before I surrender to our people’s collective self-minimisation.”

“I have never heard you speak like that.” Saerith noted.

“You and I are sisters. All those cycles you thought me deaf, I absorbed your words. Integrated and aligned them. This is my design. The mon-keigh think themselves players. So be it. We shall play. And it is long past time they were shown the rules.”

“The lesson must be taught.” Aelianiss echoed.

“So be it.” Saerith smiled sadly. ”And now we part ways again.” She inclined her head slightly. “Is my Design in motion?”

“The threads converge.” Vae’ethryn nodded, moving to briefly embrace her sister.

“I will pass your regards on to Effenrae.”

“As you say.” Vae’ethryn’s lips tightened nigh imperceptibly as they parted, her smile carrying the slightest shadow of a scowl.

“Come back to me, Saerith. Soon.” Aelianiss met Saerith’s gaze pointedly.

“Just so.”

2.15. Fallout

Archivist’s Note: Direct ship-to-planet uplink (Audio-visual) between Inquisitor Argent Laibach and Lord Inquisitor Vyzen Braiak occurred roughly four months and two weeks following on from the ‘Retaking of Kreen’.

Vyzen Braiak: Inquisitor Laibach.

Argent Laibach: Lord Inquisitor. To what do I owe the in-person visit?

Vyzen Braiak: Raal. Vae’ethryn Lec.

Argent Laibach: How bad?

Vyzen Braiak: Hard to say. Dust won’t settle for some time, yet. Argent, I’d like to request your participation on an Adeptus Mechanicus mission. Strategy and oversight. Nothing too significant, just…

Argent Laibach: You want me elsewhere.

Vyzen Braiak: Mmm.

Argent Laibach: I know you can’t say much, but can you say more?

Vyzen Braiak: As a thought experiment of sorts, do you remember those Spirit Stones you liberated from the Drukhari?

Argent Laibach: I do.

Vyzen Braiak: Let’s imagine, instead of functionally handing them back to Ulthwe -

Argent Laibach: - I did no such -

Vyzen Braiak: - When shopping around for hills to die on, Inquisitor Laibach, choose with care. I can assure you, this is not the one for you.

Argent Laibach: Well that’s ominous.

Vyzen Braiak: Mmm. Imagine, instead, you chose to strap several of them to a colourful sash, galavanting around Segmentum Obscuris, bragging that your pet Blank made you untouchable, and socialising with nobles who shared your predilections.

Argent Laibach: Are you joking?

Vyzen Braiak: Would I be ordering you into a secondment with a gaggle of clockwork Omnissiac cultists to get you several more degrees of separation from Vae’ethryn fucking Lec if it were a joke?

Argent Laibach: I suppose not.

Vyzen Braiak: And so it begins again, my girl. So it begins again. The Puritans push for purges and pogroms, the Radicals for overtures and an end to oversight. The Xenos Hybris watch and wait. Must we murder every hardliner and starry-eyed fool to restore a modicum of sanity to the sector? Emperor forgive their blindness and guide them to the fucking light.

Argent Laibach: Lord Inquisitor?

Vyzen Braiak: Forgive an old man his rambling, Argent. My bones ache. I’m tired.

Argent Laibach: Of course, Lord Inquisitor.

Vyzen Braiak: My primary concern around our project to provoke Ulthwe has shifted. If this…’situation’ represents a new status quo for how the Craftworld sees fit to ‘address‘ its ‘grievances’, our deception on Kreen may prove a more complex proposition than assumed.

Argent Laibach: Are you telling me to dismantle the infrastructure?

Vyzen Braiak: Let it stand. But we need a stand-in while you’re gone. Someone we can trust to maintain the holding pattern for a time.

Argent Laibach: Orix Kohl.

Vyzen Braiak: You’re sure?

Argent Laibach: Certain.

Vyzen Braiak: Your call, Inquisitor. Bring the Librarian up to speed.

Argent Laibach: Consider it done. The Emperor Protects.

Vyzen Braiak: Those of us who prove worthy. And Argent?

Argent Laibach: Yes, Lord Inquisitor?

Vyzen Braiak: Take care. The Imperium has need of you, yet.

1.16. The Ascendant

Archivist’s Note: Transcript procured from The Order of The Loom at the request of Magister Phaen. Transmission (audio only) via Webway relay to all Venom Glaive Kabalites, roughly four months and two weeks from the ‘Retaking of Kreen’.

Oh, what a macabre web the former Spider wove! The play was exquisite! Simple, elegant, without honour…lashed together against a lesson taught and a grudge terminated.

To a fool, the cruellest trap is a mirror. Our Half-Dark friend must have known this well. Quoraine’s obsession with the Stones echoed her own mission, and clearly he thought them alike in this way. Then, word came of Veth drifting alone, laden with retrieved bounty intended for the Void Shadows of Iyanden. One has never seen a raiding party assembled faster. I know not what the Archon coveted more, in the end: revenge for the humiliation of the Half-Spire Massacre, shame of our Kabal…or the Stones Saerith carried. Both were on offer. Choice was unnecessary.

The trap was sprung almost the moment Quoraine’s party left the Webway. Kin…undeniably, it was glorious.

The Webway path was shrouded impenetrably - exit cut off - Ulthwe’s Warlocks and Farseers knew well their role in the Design. Iyanden’s Wraithfighters tore through the escorts and support craft like paper; close in with scything precision, collapsing all that they touched into shrapnel, scourging the raiding party into the Empyrean. Further back, Iyanden’s Dragon Ships disgorged their payload into the void, columns of silent-screaming shroud-runners which made short work of the engines of Quoraine’s Raider. Ulthwe torpedoes hurtled, silent through the vacuum, and Wraithguard borders mobilised…

The efficiency of it. The brutality. The speed.

They say Saerith herself took Quoraine in the end, Effenrae by her side, sundering his essence back to She Who Thirsts like the avatar of Morai-Heg…an object lesson from our Craftworld Kin about the endpoints of patience, mercy, and grace.

Of course…I was honoured to assist in facilitating the transition. There are those Trueborn who would make a Harlequin’s Masque of the whole affair. How I turned that Anhraithe’s sentimentality to purpose…drawing in a creature of prophecy and leveraging her base desire for violence against the one road-block impeding me? How, without raising a finger - without compromising a shred of our accrued power within Commorragh - I dispatched the Archon of our Kabal through, purely, the weapons of our enemies? Some Trueborn - lesser Trueborn - would demand prostration and titles and tributes to match the scale of their cunning; their efficiency. But not I. Not humble Etriz. Not Archon Etriz the Splinterer, magnanimous overlord of the Venom Glaive.

And now we drink! To Effenrae the mark! To Saerith Veth the Outcast! To Naevir Quoraine, the dead-and-damned fool! My kin, welcome to a new Age! An Age of shrieks and spoils and slaughter! May my ascent be heralded by the screams of both fresh enemies and former friends!

2.16. Counterforce

Archivist’s note: Minutes from Capital Ship Jovian Lance, procured from The Order of The Loom at the request of Magister Phaen. Recorded roughly four months and two weeks following the ‘Retaking of Kreen.

Argent Laibach: So the table is set?

Orix Kohl: Yes, Inquisitor. Assets in place. Rejuvenat project underway. Monitoring, surveillance, and conditional counter strike strategems active.

Argent Laibach: Good. I want to know the second we confirm any relevant Xenos activity. Constant planetary and mid-range scans. I want them going night and day. I don’t care how far out the Mechanicus drag me, burn out an Astropath if needs be, I -

Vae’ethryn Lec: - Forgive my intrusion, mon-keigh. From afar though it may be, I thought it best to lend my voice to the deliberations.

Argent Laibach: …

Orix Kohl: …

Vae’ethryn Lec: No ’die, Xenos scum’? No ‘how did the Aeldari witch gain access to our comms’? I must say, I’m a little underwhelmed by the reception.

Argent Laibach: Well, we were expecting you. A bit sooner, if anything. How was Torian?

Vae’ethryn Lec: An abomination grown over the ruins of something older and greater than you could fathom. The sunrises were pleasant?

Argent Laibach: Well that’s positive. I’ve heard some mixed reviews.

*Vae’ethryn Lec: Have you, now? Best take those to heart, Inquisitor. One should always know what one is walking into.

Argent Laibach: Speaking of, Farseer, we’re quite busy at present?

Vae’ethryn Lec: I shan’t waste your time then. Why are you here?

Argent Laibach: Why are you?

Vae’ethryn Lec: My people have been watching over this planet for aeons, child. Since well before your confused progenitors climbed their way down from the deep forests of their home, which they subsequently razed and replaced with a miasma of toxicity and fake rock.

Orix Kohl: A lie. The Xenos have fought too hard for this to be purely of sentimental value.

Vae’ethryn Lec: You perhaps overestimate how much effort we’ve expended here. Less lives than I can count on my fingers alone, certainly. Though I do apologise if your mathematics have been skewed by the magnitude of your own losses.

Argent Laibach: Congratulations on the low casualty count, but that’s immaterial. Ground troops. Air support. Orbital raids. Coordinated. Ongoing. We know why we’re here: Kreen is an asset. But my job is you, Xenos. You do not jeopardise thousands of lives on an empty fucking planet.

Vae’ethryn Lec: An asset, Inquisitor? And yet you move to sunder it.

Argent Laibach: Only if your force our hand.

Vae’ethryn Lec: You best hope we do not choose to cut off your hands.

Orix Kohl: If you could have, you would have.

Vae’ethryn Lec: Do not imagine you can divine the intentions of a Farseer, child. Concern yourself with more tangible realities.

Argent Laibach: Meaning?

Vae’ethryn Lec: There is a world known to us, on the fringes of your so-called ‘Imperium’. Deep in its un-excavated bowels are relics from your own lost and forgotten history which - once found - will allow access to vast new arsenals. I believe you refer to these artifacts as STCs. Fragmentary, to be sure. Yet beyond definable value to you. It is known that these knowledges will be uncovered within the next hundred cycles. If Aemira - Kreen - dies, so does this world.

Argent Laibach: …Are you out of your mind?! How can we possibly verify that?

Vae’ethryn Lec: To echo your phrase: that’s immaterial. You are not the only one who understands what a ‘gold standard bargaining chip' is, Inquisitor Argent Laibach.

Argent Laibach: How is Lothlaen, anyway?

Vae’ethryn Lec: Amused. He sends his regards.

Orix Kohl: If you expect our actions to be dictated by -

Vae’ethryn Lec: - Faith?

Argent Laibach: Have you considered the possibility that our agendas may be aligned? Why are you on…what was your term for it? Aemira?

Vae’ethryn Lec: The strands of fate twist and interweave; split and knit in twain -

Argent Laibach: - You’re transparent, Farseer. The truth of it is, you obfuscate context to appear unpredictable. You rely on our perceptions of you as unreadable and incomprehensible. It’s a survival tactic, and it’s going to get you killed because it simply translates as ‘you can’t be trusted’.

Vae’ethryn Lec: ‘Trust’, mon-keigh? Do you think me a fool? The creed of your vocation is ‘Suffer not the alien to live’.

Argent Laibach: What do you want with Kreen?!

Vae’ethryn Lec: You have no leverage, mon-keigh. If Kreen burns, I will personally ensure this artifact world burns with it.

Argent Laibach: Kohl is correct. We will not let some lying Xenos dictate our actions.

Vae’ethryn Lec: I have made my position clear. Do what you will. But know this: I do not bluff.

Argent Laibach: Kohl, we’re keeping the fleet in place. I suppose we’ll see who blinks first.